Look, it would be very nice if we all got to vote for our “perfect” candidate

No, all I want is elected leaders and judges who take the Constitution seriously. Who believe in the concept of limited government, and who understand that there are vast areas of life that the federal government has no business being involved with. And are willing to say so, loudly and publicly.

Sadly, that type is all but extinct. Nowadays, every incident results in a bipartisan free-for-all to “Do Something”, despite the fact that the federal government is borrowing 40¢ of every dollar it spends.

But the bottom line is that people who don’t work, don’t pay taxes, and live on government handouts are still allowed to vote. That must end, and until it does, there is no electoral solution to our problems. Truly responsible politicians have no chance of winning elections as long as productive citizens can be outvoted by parasites and freeloaders. This is a fundamental problem that goes well beyond parties and individual politicians.

The Founders were well aware of this, of course. File under “Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

“when they say education they mean indoctrination.”

Oh, how you read my mind!

I actually had something like that in my comment; but, then took it out thinking that most folks here would know that.

I so agree with you that the left has turned education into an indoctrination. Rather, I should say that they have tried. For many folks, especially the non-political, it has, indeed, become an indoctrination. But, I have also seen a lot of young folks just not buy the crap they are pushing. Going along, doing whatever it takes to get the grade . . . believing all along that the professor is full of crap.

So, there is hope yet that the tide will turn (or should I say, there is hope that WE can turn the tide?)

As far as using “their” language and phrases? Why not? We can, and should, redefine the terms to mean what they should mean. By “re-owning” the language we take away part of their tools, don’t we?

This reminds me of the time I heard a black (or should I be like Ebony and Jet magazine and spell that Black or, even better, African-American?) say that she was different from the rest of us because she was, “you know, ethnic.” I asked her exactly how she was “ethnic” while the rest of us weren’t? Wasn’t someone who was white (note the lower case “w” since white and black are descriptions, not grammically proper nouns) also of some particular ethnicity?

I consider it a victory (albeit rather small, but still a victory) in getting her to admit that she was misusing the word ethnic by not considering that everyone is ethnic.

So, I say we need to start our battle against the left by educating others and that also means using their tools against them and their narrow-mindness.

Charles, I’m not disagreeing with you, but my automatic reaction to the above sentence was rolling my eyes… because we hear it so much from the Left – and of course they don’t mean the same thing by it that you do – when they say education they mean indoctrination.

The Left, specifically post modernism, has completely taken over and corrupted our language. We should avoid using their words and phrases that no longer convey the true meaning. Even words like liberty and freedom are meaningless nowadays.

I don’t have an answer… just pointing it out.

The choice often is, always has been, and will continue to be, the “lesser of two evils.”

Obama (and the Democrats) ran a campaign based upon emotions, greed (free stuff!) and envy (tax the rich, they have too much). And there are enough ignorant people who bought their lies.

The only cure for ignorance is education. I’ve started by telling some folks what I think of those who support Obama and WHY!

Many of them do not talk to me any more. (Quite frankly, I’m better without mooches in my life anyway.)

The GOP or any other party cannot re-establish the limited government of the 19th century. And that will be true even after and assuming the Dems and their leftist economic model are thoroughly discredited.

The average Joe/Jane is going to vote for more government/better security net simply because we live in an age when the family bonds are weaker, families are smaller, marriages are less frequent and more likely to break up, urbanization is advanced, all of which means that the individual (particularly a single woman trying to get by with a kid) doesn’t have the social support net of the 19th century, and will as a matter of necessity look towards a larger government to provide that security.

This is something that in fact the GOP has shifted to adapt to politically and there’s no going back.

That doesn’t mean that this country wouldn’t benefit from some serious push back on reducing government and in particular the Federal government or that there isn’t room for reforms – a lot of reforms.

“A better analogy is if a person has, let’s say, a perhaps-fatal disease. Do you let it run rampantly out of control, or do you try treating it and slowing down its progress? ”

I agree. Do what you can as you can.

” (I)n a way”

At least you qualify it somewhat. Others who bewail what is being done to them don’t. They just cannot grasp how far the mentality of the leftist has migrated from their own. Don’t conservatives read leftist lit? Do they imagine that leftists don’t really believe what they are saying?

Yeah, sure, the run-of-the-mill liberal voter probably is motivated by emotion to a greater degree than say a well informed libertarian or conservative; especially when the question at issue can be pleasingly framed as one of “community values” or “human flourishing” or whatever collectivist trope de jour is being served up.

But, the left do have ideas which to their minds “justify” a subsequent emotional gauging of questions.

And come on, we are all familiar with these intellectual themes: the dethronement of reason as the arbiter of value, the marginalizing of consciousness to an epiphenomenal status, institutionalized skepticism about the intelligibility of reality, etc., etc. … everyone here knows the subjectivism relativism anti-rationalism drill and can recite the litany of “intellectual” positions which have brought us to the brink of the post modern abyss.

So, where’s the supposed mystery as to their contempt for the rubes who still believe in a world found as objective fact, rather than one formed amid chaos as an act of artistic human creation?

Now to those conservative types who cannot process these facts, or who are committed to a self-sacrificial moral gesture on behalf of a communion only they seem to still feel, I say you are welcome to climb up on a crosses of your own fashioning. And, perhaps while doing so you will gain some sympathy or even converts from among the more sensitive of the jeering left-wing spectators .

Old movies would lead us to think so.

But those who wish to humbly suffer should at least recognize that the game they are investing themselves in is being played with two different sets of rules and moral perspectives.

Perhaps Divine intervention will justify your sacrificial forbearance. But I would not count on it. Not when the people for whom you are sacrificing figure everything you are sacrificing for is a joke or an illusion.

Bro’,

There is a time for taking up arms, and a time for fortifying the troops with encouragement. (See Ecclesiastes 3:1-8)

At neo’s site, yes, we do mostly the latter — but the latter definitely has its place. As to the former, we each do what we do as individuals.

(Some, like moi, are a little older now [how’d ^that^ happen??], and just do not have the stamina for the gut-wrenching battle(s) we see ahead. But we’ll do what we can, nevertheless.)

Peace and all that,

M J R